


Bitten

by Serendipity1



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Anna and Elsa are witches, Gen, Hogwarts AU, Kristoff is a squib, sibling bonding in the time of werewolves, trying to keep a somewhat canon storytelling, werewolf!Elsa, with delicious hogwarts twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1298032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serendipity1/pseuds/Serendipity1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elsa survives a werewolf attack that turns into a family tragedy, forcing her to keep her darkest secret from her sister in an attempt to protect the both of them. To keep Anna and everyone else around her safe, Elsa tries to lock herself away from the world. Then she turns eleven, and her acceptance letter comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitten

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to summerlightning on tumblr for helping with fic ideas and also for editing the first draft of this. <3

"Elsa?"

Elsa squeezes her eyes shut tighter, curling up under her downy duvet, and tries to ignore the persistent whispering of a little sister who really needs to be in bed already. As far as she knows, it's around nine o' clock if not midnight. Maybe if she looks asleep enough, Anna will take pity on her and wait until morning.

No such luck. The whispering continues, followed by a little shove at her shoulder. "Elsa! C'mon, wake up! Elsa!"

'Wake up' is not all that appropriate a statement, as she hasn't really had the chance to go to sleep yet. Time to give in to the inevitable before she gets jumped on. Literally. "What?" she mumbles, groaning a little.

Elsa sits up in bed as Anna scrambles in to get a little closer. Pale, silver light spills into the room from the filmy lace curtains, not the grey and pink light of dawn, but moonlight. Her sister is shivering on her bed with a mournful expression, her bare and baby-pudgy arms covered in gooseflesh, her tiny feet cold as ice.

Sighing, Elsa tucks the blanket around the both of them and frowns at her little sister in her 'best older sibling' way. "It's so late the moon's still out, Anna. We can play tomorrow."

Anna tugs at Elsa's nightgown in dismay, balling her little fists into the fabric and squinching her face up, distressed. Now that she can see a little better in the near-dark, it's easy to make out her sister's face: Anna's eyes are watery and her mouth wobbling, a clear sign that tears are soon to come. "No, Elsa, we have to go get Olaf! I left him outside!"

In response, Elsa just sighs again, but pulls Anna close and strokes her hair. "Really, Anna? The doll?" Olaf is a knitted toy snowman, made of soft merine wool and shining button eyes. It is the first present Elsa ever gave her sister, and consequently, Anna has the tendency of carrying it around with her wherever she goes. The poor thing also requires constant cleansing charms or else his pure white wool would be grey and stained by now. This wouldn't even be the first time Anna has forgotten him in some random location, but it's definitely the first time she doesn't have him by the bedtime. The tragedy is clearly affecting her deeply.

"Please, Elsa, we have to get him!" Anna whispers, still with a death grip on her sister's nightgown. "We just have to! I can't just leave him out in the cold, that'd be so mean of me. He'd never forgive me and I'll have to build him a new house because he won't want to sleep with me because I left him all alone out in the snow to die!"

"He'll be alright, Anna," Elsa says, still stroking Anna's hair. "He's a snowman, they like the snow."

Anna sniffs. "He's not _that_ kind of snowman."

"Maybe he's having fun outside," Elsa tries."Watching the snow fall down, and making star pictures like you do?" It's a fun image, the little toy lying face-up and gazing at the constellations. It does nothing to soothe her sister.

"No," Anna says in a watery voice, "Olaf hates the winter, he likes the summer. And the squirrels are going to eat him. Or someone's going to pick him up and he'll get lost. And he's going to be lonely and I can't go to sleep without him!" At that, her face crumples and she leans into Elsa's shoulder, making a damp little patch on her sadly abused nightgown as she starts sniffling out her misery.

"Ohhh...alright, calm down, it's fine," Elsa says, trying to be comforting. The small lump that is her sister gives a particularly loud sniffle in response, probably smearing stuff all over her nightgown. "Come on...well, do you even remember where you left Olaf? He could be anywhere, and we can't stay out in the dark and the cold like he can. Humans get colds and flus, remember? You're not a snowman."

"We're witches," Anna says, muffled against her shoulder. "We can just take a pepper-up potion right after. They taste like cinnamon and fireplaces. I like them." She sits up, rubbing at her eyes. "And I remember where I put him! He's right on the funny stool in the garden. Remember? You were going to make the tea and I put him down."

The elaborate iron seat that Anna is referring to isn't all too far away from the back porch of their estate, in the stand of willows and pines where all the shade-loving plants her father planted grow. The heavy table and chairs are in close view of the house and have often been used by their family to take dinner or lunch at when the weather gets warm enough, or sometimes even in winter with warming spells and fairy lights cast around the area. It shouldn't be _too_ hard to sneak out and then back upstairs quietly enough, since their parents sleep pretty soundly.

"All right," she relents, feeling Anna's little shoulders tense in excitement, "We can go get him. But you have to be very, very quiet."

"I'll be so quiet!" Anna promises, ecstatic already. "I'll be quiet like a shadow! Are shadows quiet or just dark? I'll be so good!" She wiggles off Elsa's lap, her feet solidly hitting the floor with a small thunk, and practically dances to the door. "C'mon c'mon c'mon, c'mon Elsa!"

"Sssh!" Elsa warns, a smile twitching at her lips.

They don thick robes and creep stealthily and unobtrusively down the stairs, Anna giggling to herself under her breath but, fortunately, not saying anything as they pass the hallway containing the family bedrooms, especially the master suite. The windows are curtained shut, the rooms so dark that Elsa is glad for the tiny toy wand with the fairy light at the tip that she's brought with her, casting a faint light about her and sending shadows dancing on the walls and floor.

"Spooky," Anna giggles, to more shushing from her sister.

The doors out to their back porch are large and imposing, almost intimidating at night, covered in tumbling dark blue velvet and outfitted with huge mother of pearl and brass handles. They're shaped like two folded wings, and Elsa usually loves the strange texture of the metal feathers beneath her fingers, but something about the ominous silence in their house makes her hesitate to touch them.

"Hurry up Elsa," Anna says in a stage whisper behind her, prodding with her finger. _You're being silly,_ she scolds herself as she pulls the curtain away from the door. There's nothing really creepy here, just a white expanse of ankle-deep snow, already littered with footprints from an afternoon of play. The trees are stark and bare in contrast, the garden a cluster of dark, bristling shapes. Elsa shivers and opens the door, cold air hitting her full in the face.

"Wow! It's so pretty out here," Anna says, pushing past her to stand on the front porch and gaze up at the night sky and the silver-shining moon hanging there. For a moment it is, too, like they're explorers in a secret world of their own. Then the cold hits, and the magic is, if not ruined, at least partially tarnished.

"Where's Olaf?" Elsa asks, shivering for real now. There's a slight breeze, making the bitter cold even worse. Looks like they really _will_ need some pepper-up potion after this. "You just stay here, I'll go and grab him," she adds, not wanting her tiny sister to go tripping through the icy backyard any more than she needed to. A good thing she has some idea where the toy is, since it'd be awful trying to find a white doll against white snow at night.

Her sister points. "Over there. See, right there on the seat by the red berry bush."

And sure enough, by the prickly leaves of the holly berry, she can see a small, white lump propped against the back of one of the lacy ironwork seats. The snow crunches underfoot, leaking into her hastily-donned house slippers and freezing her ankles and toes. "You're a very lucky snowman," she says under her breath, trying to mask the mingled feeling of fear and ridiculousness as she trudges towards the scene of their abandoned tea party. She reaches out and takes hold of the toy, glad to feel soft wool and not cold-wet snow beneath her fingers. "There you are," she mumbles, her tone soft.

"Elsa! A doggie!" her sister cries from the porch, and she turns fast to see a dark, furred shape prowling across the yard towards them.

The next few moments must happen very quickly, but she remembers them as slow, individual movements. She knows her first thought is that this dog- a _dog_ , she berates herself later, with bitterness- must be a stray from the village. Not something she should let near Anna or the house, and probably not safe, maybe even rabid. So her first action is to move back towards the house. She can't remember if she walked or ran. Maybe she walked slowly first, in a daze, and ran later.

It's not important. Once she starts moving, the creature focuses entirely on her. In her mind. this is all crystal clear. It is sharp and distinct. She'll have no trouble remembering it years later. Elsa can see the glisten of animal eyes in the dim moonlight, glinting in her direction. Its head turns her way, almost consideringly, and the animal begins to move her way. Its gait is tense, predatory. A low, feral, gutteral sound comes from the thing. It takes a while for her to recognize it as a growl.

"Good dog," she says, stuttering halfway through the hopeful statement, "stay back, stay over there."

The thing- the dog, just snarls at her in response and then bounds her way, all flash of white teeth and dark fur and eyes that unsettle her for some reason she can't understand just yet. Later she realizes they look wrong in that animal face, too intelligent. Too human.

"Elsa!" Anna screams from the porch, and Elsa runs as fast as she can towards her, towards her carefree and daring sister who she knows will put no thought into running into the line of danger after her. She runs so fast she feels like she's flying, so fast she can't even feel the jarring cold of the snow touch her heels anymore. Something tears at her leg as she stumbles over the first set of porch stairs. She barely feels any pain.

Up the stairs, she scrambles onto the cold stone of the porch and trips, catching herself with both hands. Behind her, the creature makes an agonized keening, very like a dog being punished. She turns to see the thing pacing angrily around the porch, its uncanny eyes staring at her with obvious rage. Behind her, Anna is crying, soft, choking sobs that sound painful.

"Elsa," Anna whispers, shakily, "Come inside, please, come back inside."

She's clinging to the doorframe, eyes wide with fear, fingers pale and trembling. Fire shoots through her left calf when she crawls towards the door, an unbelievably agonizing pain. She sobs, crawling closer to the Anna and feeling her bruised palms sting against the flagstone and her legs barely function as she scrabbles along, desperately. The creature, the dog-thing, snarls and snaps behind her but never steps onto the porch. It seems like forever before she manages to pull herself through the door, shaking and gasping with the pain in her leg.

Anna shuts the door with a loud, jangling thump, and beyond the glass of the door Elsa can see glowing eyes in the dark. "Why didn't it follow me?" she asks, her voice more of a gasp than anything else.

"I don't know," Anna says, her eyes teary and red and her mouth wobbling. "Are you okay? Are you really okay? Did the doggie hurt you?"

"My leg hurts," Elsa says, lifting her thick winter robe to see what the matter is. In the pale light, she sees a dark stain in the fabric of her nightgown and on the floor where her leg rests. She quickly covers it, not wanting Anna to see it and be afraid. "Go get Biffy," she says, clutching at her sister's arm. "Don't wake up Mama and Papa, just get her."

"Biffy is here, little mistress," a hushed whisper responds, and the flickering glow of a candle begins to light the room. The house elf stands at the foot of the stairs, her large, expressive eyes full of concern. "What has happened? What mischief has mistress Elsa and mistress Anna been up to?"

Anna turns on the waterworks in one of her classic ploys to get out of trouble. It works better on the house elves than on their mother and father, who are by now nearly inured to her tears. "I left my toy outside and Elsa was getting it for me and it was only going to take maybe three minutes and she got it but the big mean doggie hurt her leg and she got hurt, her leg is bleeding!"

Biffy crouches by Elsa, who hesitantly shows her the injury. Large, ragged wounds show up starkly in the candlelight, bright red against her pale skin. The bite mark is already raised and sore, the skin a puffy red to purple where the dog's teeth have bruised her. Elsa holds back a sob and clutches tightly at the fabric of her robe, trying to pretend for her little sister that this doesn't even hurt a little bit.

Anna lets out a little fractured sound halfway between a sob and a choke. "It looks so bad," she whimpers.

"I'm fine," Elsa reassures her, but her voice shakes and so do her fingers when she reaches out for Anna's hand.

"Don't tell Mama and Papa," Anna pleads, "we'll get in trouble, please don't tell them! Please?" Biffy bites her lip, looking worried.

"It's only a bite," Elsa says, her face pale. "You can just put dittany on it and it'll go away. It's in a bottle in Mama's workshop upstairs, a big blue one. You don't have to bother anyone, or wake anyone up. _Please_ , Biffy."

"Biffy will get it," she says, still looking hesitant. "But no more sneakings around at night, no more going outside in the dark. You must promise!"

"We promise," they both whisper, Anna's fingers tightening around Elsa's.

The house elf vanishes in a heartbeat and returns in a flash with a bottle of dittany essence clutched in her small, spindly hands. Gently, she pours a small amount on a clean cloth and begins to massage it into the skin of the wound. At first, it stings. Then, the dittany begins to work its magic, and a soothing coolness sinks into her leg, a feeling like she just dipped it into a bath of cold water.

A moment later, there's nothing to show for the injury save a few mostly-healed marks and the stains on her nightgown.


End file.
